


Dust to dust

by museaway



Category: Jurassic Park III (2001)
Genre: Angst, Coda, Drama, Implied Relationships, M/M, POV Second Person, Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-02-08
Updated: 2004-02-08
Packaged: 2017-11-28 14:17:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/675327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/museaway/pseuds/museaway
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events on Isla Sorna, Billy reflects.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dust to dust

**Author's Note:**

> Written around 2004

You've got a toothbrush in your hand, brushing sand from the fossilized bone, but it keeps blowing back across the area you cleaned, and you wonder why you keep trying.  
  
Wonder why you did it.  
  
Why you had to pick up those fucking eggs.  
  
It cost you. It cost more than the setback to your career; it cost you his respect. His...  
  
Whatever it was that the two of you had.  
  
You can see it in the way he looks at you now, or rather, the way he won't meet your eyes. He's concerned about the dig and the PhD candidates in their final semester. He's off most afternoons seeking out new grants to keep the dig funded for another year. He doesn't spend that extra minute looking over your work with you anymore. Doesn't invite you into his trailer for a beer after a hot day. Doesn't slide into the cramped diner seat next to you and rest his arm behind your head while he listens to you daydream out loud.  
  
You're second now.  
  
The wind kicks dust into your eyes. They tear; you blink it away, and dust sticks to the wet lines on your face.  
  
You'd thought--what had you been thinking?--that you could somehow raise a damned velociraptor and prove everybody wrong? That he'd get the respect he deserved and the funding and the packed auditoriums he should be speaking to instead of those students who wouldn't know science if it knocked them on their asses?  
  
That he'd be so grateful he'd never push you away, the way he did Ellie.  
  
Neck bent and cramping, jeans wet behind your knees, nose and cheeks sunburned, you keep brushing away at sand in the desert, the motion as futile as pitching water from a boat with the hull torn out.  
  
In the distance he laughs with someone else, hearty and loud, and starts off in the other direction. Your stomach lurches, and the nausea sweeps over you. There's a bad taste in the back of your throat. Brush so fiercely that the bristles splay sideways and are spoiled. Rock back on your heels and rest your head in your hands. Ignore the girl that asks if you're all right and puts a hand on your shoulder.

Find yourself wishing that parasail hadn't opened.


End file.
